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Produced by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office
Faculty
Finding Balance:
The Professor/Entrepreneur
The science of biology is one thing but the science of business is another
animal all together. For academics who recognize that their discovery or
innovation can be commercialized into a product or service for which people
will actually pay, the promise of entrepreneurial endeavors can be exhilarating
and confounding at the same time. Issues of intellectual property ownership,
human resources protocols, and time management, as well as the challenge
of keeping a delineated barrier between professorial and business activities
can be difficult to manage, but these concerns shouldn’t prevent
academics from seeking to create a startup company. The
key is to find avenues to balance the two worlds so
that scientists can still continue to excel in what they
do best and enjoy most—research and discovery.
By Alaina G. Levine
Omid Farokhzad has been involved with three startups and holds
60 patents, and still manages a prolific laboratory of 25 people in
nanomedicine and biomaterials at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
in Boston. The Harvard Medical School associate professor of
anesthesiology completed his postdoc in a group headed by MIT’s
Robert Langer, where “the mindset of doing translational work was
part of my training,” he says. So commercializing technology while
contributing to the academic enterprise was a natural part of his
genesis as a scientific leader.
But not every scientist has the luxury of learning about patents
and products from their postdoc principal investigator. When Dave
Berque, a professor of computer science at DePauw University,
started as an entrepreneur, “I was uncomfortable at first. I wondered
if it is appropriate for an academic to have products that spin off
research,” he shares. But soon he found himself at ease with the
process of becoming an entrepreneur, he says, because this is similar
to the “textbook publication model that has been long-accepted in
academia, as a way of blending scholarly and commercial activities.”
If you are a professor who ponders whether your research can
be developed into a technology that can be commercialized, your
initial step should be to ponder your priorities. Do you want to
stay in academia? Do you desire a career in industry? Deciding
these choices early on, even before the lawyers and university
representatives get involved, is crucial to forging a balance and a
satisfying career.
Farokhzad says part of the reason he has been successful
is because he recognized that “my primary goal is to be an
academic, and I don’t have any desire to run any of these
companies.”
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FIGURING OUT WHAT PATH TO TAKE
For every innovation that an academic thinks has market potential,
there are seemingly endless ways of transferring that invention into
a business. From weaving a multilayered licensing deal, to launching
a company, to selling the technology outright, the dizzying array of
entrepreneurial outlets can be unfamiliar territory for a professor
whose training has been spent in the lab.
To wrangle the options and make it through the multiverse of
marketing and manufacturing without sacrificing professorial duties,
an academic’s initial stop should be their institution’s office of
technology transfer (OTT).
The key is creating complete transparency from the start, suggests
Adam G. Marsh, associate professor of marine biological science at
the University of Delaware. Ensure the university knows what you
are doing, and “make sure the university is happy with what you’re
doing,” he advises. Get to know your institution’s human resources
regulations and how they may impact your work in the private sector.
For example, at Marsh’s institution, there are restrictions on how
much time a professor can consult for an outside organization, he
says. And there is also a rule that a faculty member can’t work for
another company while employed at the university, a continued>
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KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES
“Students see the passion we bring
for science and entrepreneurship and
it’s easier for them to see themselves
doing it too.” —Gregory Phelan
FOCUS ON CAREERS
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Faculty
Featured Participants
MIT
www.mit.edu
Brigham and Women’s
Hospital
www.brighamandwomens.org
Oklahoma University
Health Science Center
ouhsc.edu
DePauw University
www.depauw.edu
SUNY College at Cortland
www2.cortland.edu/home
Harvard Medical School
hms.harvard.edu
The University of
Tennessee
www.utk.edu
King’s College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/medicine/
index.aspx
stipulation that is common throughout academia.
The OTT can assist faculty with understanding how much time
they can spend on outside endeavors and how it must be structured. Technology transfer professionals also provide insight into
patent law and can help professors navigate intellectual property
(IP) issues. But you need to be proactive, recommends Berque, and
find out your school’s IP policies early on. “The worst time to ask,”
he notes, “is after you launch, when the stakes are high and you
have value.”
Gregory Phelan, an associate professor and chair of the chemistry
department at SUNY College at Cortland, jokes about intellectual
property: “If you’re breathing university air, they have the right to it.”
Professors need to have an IP plan from the start and should engage
their university’s tech transfer office early on. The collaboration
between the professor and their OTT will be a vital factor in ensuring
that the proper balance and separation is maintained between their
entrepreneurial and academic endeavors. But “do not labor under
the misconception that your tech transfer office automatically knows
what to do with your research, because they probably don’t,” cautions
Michael Zemel, a professor of nutritional science and medicine at the
University of Tennessee. “You’ll need to explain what the commercial
value is, the utility of your work, and who would benefit. Insist on a
conversation.”
Although there are multiple avenues to engage in entrepreneurship,
many professors choose to license their technology to an existing
firm or start their own company, and then back off. They might serve
as a science advisor, but they prioritize their time so that they can
maintain their teaching and research loads while offering outside
counsel to industry. “My primary commitment is to MIT,” says Nobel
Laureate Phillip Sharp, who cofounded Biogen in 1978 and served
as chair of its science advisory board and then as a member of the
board of directors for 20 years. “MIT and Biogen recognized that my
interactions would be limited to one day a week.”
Joop Gäken, a senior lecturer in the School of Medicine at King’s
College London, has three patents. When he licensed his microRNA
target identification technology to a company, he did so in part to forge
equilibrium between the two worlds he was straddling. “Because we
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University of Delaware
www.udel.edu
Marquette University
www.marquette.edu
didn’t spin off our own company, it hasn’t been disruptive for me,” he
explains. “Keeping the balance was not very difficult, and I still did
most of the same work I was doing before.”
MANAGING POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Once you engage in entrepreneurship, you must create a distinct
separation between your university lab and your company’s facilities.
IP can’t flow freely between the two, and neither can labor—your
grad students cannot work for you in your group and intern at your
company at the same time. Safeguards that prevent mingling are
necessary for legal purposes, say experts, as well as to synthesize a
balance between being in academia and being in business.
David Baker, a professor of biomedical sciences in the College
of Health Sciences at Marquette University, partnered with his
institution to set up “firewalls” to manage any potential conflict of
interest that could occur. The university enlisted the help of a third
party contractor, he explains, who implemented certain checkpoints
that would catch and resolve possible concerns.
“There is a demarcated line between my academic labs and the
companies that got started in part through my inventions,” says
Farokhzad. Anything that is or could appear to be a conflict of interest
is immediately shuttered. He doesn’t accept sponsored research
from companies, either his own or others, and any work that is
“earmarked for the companies doesn’t connect with my academic
lab.” And to ensure that his postdocs and staff don’t feel they are
doing work in the lab that can be funneled into one of his ventures,
he encourages open discussion about patents and he generally
doesn’t transfer any IP discovered in his academic lab into an old
company. Instead, “if the new IP is viewed as game-changing, then it
may form the foundation for a new company.”
Sharp urges that an almost excessive amount of communication
about your dual paths is warranted to prevent even continued>
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CREDIT: PHOTO IS THE PROPERTY OF DR. SHARP’S OFFICE
“I utilize wide
disclosure to
audiences during
speeches.”
—Phillip Sharp
Biogen Idec
www.biogenidec.com
FOCUS ON CAREERS
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Faculty
the perception of misconduct. “I utilize wide
disclosure to audiences during speeches,”
he says.
University of Delaware’s Marsh even
keeps separate computer systems for his
university and company research.
acquire internships and jobs, or to pursue
other kinds of research collaborations.
“Students see the passion we bring for
science and entrepreneurship and it’s easier for them to see themselves doing it too,”
echoes Phelan.
The connections that faculty make not
only help the students but benefit the deFINDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE
partment and university as a whole as well.
“I’m very comfortable working with the
Phelan describes how after speaking with
investors that I trust and leave it to their
local businesses about his technology, he
judgment to bring in the best business and
invited an industry representative to serve
scientific team to advance our technologies,”
on a department board, which helped bolsays Farokhzad, pointing to a lesson
ster the department’s profile for fundraising
that many faculty learn early on even in
and public relations purposes, and generacademia—surround yourself with talented
ally paved the way for more interactions bepeople and you will shine.
tween university and industrial scientists.
“Your company will be more successful if
Paul DeAngelis, a professor of biochemyou personally don’t do stuff that you are not
istry and molecular biology at Oklahoma
good at,” says Marsh. “One has to recognize
University Health Science Center, notes
the difference between what you ‘can do’
“My computer science
that being an entrepreneur opens up the acbecause of related prior experience and
ademic to novel potential revenue streams,
what you ‘should not be doing’ because of
classes are better
even with a hard separation between the
overconfident ignorance.” For example, he
because I can bring in
activities. “NIH isn’t the golden ticket that
adds, negotiating a license agreement with
is going to be feeding you forever,” he cauyour institute’s OTT should be handled by a
my own experiences
tions. “My advice is to not rely solely on NIH
lawyer familiar with the commercial value of
from my work.”
resources if you have the ability to create a
similar IP.
company and a drug or device that can help
Marsh launched his company in 2009
—Dave Berque
people.”
and serves as its chief scientific officer. On
Entrepreneurship activity invariably also
paper he is not employed by the firm, but
helps scientists improve their ability to arrather serves as a consultant. His advice
is echoed by other successful professor-entrepreneurs: “Find the ticulate concepts to numerous publics. “As you explain complicated
best business partners you can,” especially people with experience scientific processes to different audiences,” says Phelan, “it makes
you a better teacher and helps improve your critical thinking and
managing startups.
A synergistic team will help you productively manage your time. communications skills.” In addition, as you gain more knowledge
“Get ready for a busy life: one that is three times as busy,” jests about the commercialization process, and have a better understandPhelan. “I was surprised how busy I was. I couldn’t believe it took ing of the business world, you can improve your grant proposals.
this much time to get a company started, funded, and a product “Your work is directly benefiting society and humankind,” he continues. “Entrepreneurship helps make grant applications stronger,
made.”
because it stimulates new ideas and demonstrates potential commercial partners,” giving you more return on your investment. If you
GETTING ROI ON THE FACULTY SIDE
“As daunting as it seems, entrepreneurship is very worthwhile,” can establish in your proposal that your innovation has commercial
says Baker. “It has energized me and even though I have fewer appeal, adds DeAngelis, it further increases your chances of landing
publications than I would otherwise have, I’m so much more the grant.
An entrepreneurial undertaking has myriad benefits on the
enthused about my research.” Moreover, his interaction with
patients who have benefited from his technology “gives us a academic side, and in the long run can help you reset your priorities
real sense that what we’re doing may have a profound impact in as a scientist. Farokhzad emphasizes that entrepreneurship has
addressing unmet medical needs. We wouldn’t have this without the helped him be a better professor because it has sharpened his ability
in identifying significant research problems. “It takes just as much
entrepreneurship.”
Even with a targeted separation of academic and business time and capital to work on really important problems as it does on
endeavors, pursuing commercialization can actually enhance the less important ones,” he says. “As an academic entrepreneur,
your skills in education. “My computer science classes are better you’re required to have that litmus test—is this impactful research?
because I can bring in my own experiences from my work,” says If not you let it go.”
Berque. “This influences students to think about innovation and
entrepreneurship as career paths.” He draws on examples from
Alaina G. Levine is a science writer based in Tucson, AZ.
his software company, and ultimately, he says, “I serve as a more
informed career counselor.” His professional advice is augmented
with contacts in the business world who can arrange for pupils to DOI: 10.1126/science.opms.r1200122
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